My yarn arrived yesterday. It is String Theory Caper, a blend of merino, cashmere and nylon. The colors are Cobalt (Dark blue) and Carina, a subtly variegated greige. It’s not quite what I expected but it will work!


I will be making the Catkin Shawl. It’s a little hard to post the picture here but go to Ravelry and you can see it done up in a few color schemes. Can’t start until the 15th!

Knit early in the morning, and knit alone. Conversation will keep me from counting. Being tired at the end of day will trip me up.

I think the picture speaks for itself.

The scarf itself is being knit on bamboo straights I bought at Target for $1 some time ago. but in the foreground is a 000 DPN for when I do screw up (about every 4 rows). Very handy.

Also always have on hand a simple project, not only for night time knitting (see my first suggestion) but also to cleanse your brain from all the twisty bits and numbers that a lace pattern requires. I currently have a simple sock and an infinity scarf to fill that task.

Pattern details:
Kernel from Knitty
Yarn: Handmaiden Fine Yarn Mini Maiden “Amethyst”

It takes on average 21 days for a chicken egg to be laid and a chick to emerge.

It takes a turkey 28 days to make the same trip.

A duck takes 28 days too. So in 3-4 weeks, all of this life is created and ready to go! Less than a month!

So what’s my problem? I have been working on this pair of socks for 24 days now, and I have 6 days to go to finish this sock in time to be entered in the Wendy Knits “Socks From the Toe Up” KAL on Ravelry. (If you are not a member of Ravelry, take note that memberships are now immediately approved! No more waiting!)

So, chicken 21 days. Turkey and ducks, 28 days. Feathers and feet and eyes and all that. Me, not so efficient.

I can console myself that it takes a cow a touch over 9 months to create a calf. A 200 pound calf.

I have 6 days to turn the heel and create the leg, and bind off. At least I’ve got thyme. (groan).

I knit the Wrapper’s Delight from iKnitiative with some CTH Baby Loop (boucle). Never ending lump of goo. I hate boucle. Pattern was ok.

Then I made Abruzo from local Laura Nelkin on knitty.com with some thick yarn I bought at Hemlock. Easy pattern, love the yarn but when it was done I just wasn’t happy with its fit. Bulky yarn makes me look … bulky.

You will note there are no pictures of my own so far

Then I made a hat for my step-daughter.

Pattern: Fusilli Beanie

Yarn: Cascade Pastaza

and the Noro Scarf made famous by Brooklyn Tweed. This was a really fun knit. I did it on a plane flight.

Pattern: Noro Striped Scarf

Yarn: Noro Silk Garden 244 & 268

On another plane flight I designed some socks. Simply because I had yarn, no pattern and needed a manly sock. I wanted the ribbed cuff to grow out into larger ribs, which I ended up making like a beaded rib. Nothing special really.

Pattern: My own, K4,P1 (allter rows knit all)

Yarn: Three Irish Girls “Campbell”

And another sock in progress which I can’t show you right now *wink. Christmas is coming you know.

I swung by a LYS yesterday to pick up some Jamiesons yarn for yet another Brooklyn Tweed pattern, Druid mittens (cover of last issue of Vogue, I am sure you know which ones) as well as enough for a baby surprise jacket. Also got some Plymouth Boku to try that with the striped scarf and also some white Brown Sheep to do a fake fair isle hat with even more Noro.

Like I said, Christmas is coming

After starting Undulating Waves scarf about 7 times, it was time to ask for help.

These two turkeys looked it over and gave me some tips. I finally understood the bead placement!

Unfortunately I was unhappy with the size of my YOs. So the scarf is frogged again. The turkeys will study the pattern and give me some more pointers soon.

Working on a pair of Dashing for …someone .. for Christmas. I am not too experienced with cables yet and may be pulling these just a little too tight. We’ll see how the finished mitt looks, then judge for frogging and starting over.

I finished a pair of Maine Morning Mitts for …someone else… but am going to redo one of them. I guess my tape measure was working properly when I completed the first one and then stopped working when I was working on the second. The distance between cuff and thumb hole is off. Oops. Easily fixed. I am happy that the colored stripes worked out to match – I worked hard on that using just one skein.

The yarn for both is Patons SWS, a wool/soy blend. I like its Noro-ish morphing from color to color. The yarn has a nice halo and the colors are great. I picked the pink scheme to complement a hat I knit last month. I do have the tendency to poke the yarn with my needle instead of cleaning pulling it over as I knit. If this is not a single ply yarn, it is *very* loosely plied. I have it on good authority (hi Melodie!) that this yarn does pill.

The brown mitts are to accompany this hat, in progress. The hat is Reasonably Hip in the recent MagKnits. I still need to purchase some plastic mat to create the brim, so the hat is stalled and brimless until then. The yarn here is the workhorse Cascade 220. It’s one of the Heathers line and is a combination of purple and brown, depending on the light.

What’s scarier – that my niece wants a fun fur scarf for Christmas, or that I _did not have to buy any supplies to make her one_ ?

Me? I am going with option #2.

With this mystery project (HoHoHo) I am doing my first colorwork. The first few rows, colors were alternated every other stitch so I just pulled the yarn along behind the stitches (purple and pink part).

The pattern is more intricate with the dark and light pink yarns, so I carry the second color along as I knit with the first. This leaves less loose yarn exposed. IMO it makes for a denser fabric too.

But I have a problem.

A tangled mess. One way around it, I guess, would be to cut the yarn into workable lengths, and move these small balls back and forth as opposed to the working end of the yarn as I am now. But I am adverse to cutting the yarn. So far all I have been doing is knitting a couple rows, then untwisting the tangles, and starting over. But there has to be a better way.

For the first time, I am trying my hand at stranded colorwork. I knit English, or the ‘throw’ method. It took my fingers a little bit to decide the best way to pass the yarn as the colors switch. At first I was carrying only one color at a time, but after a few rows, I decided the easiest way was to hold one strand looped over my thumb and the other over my index finger. I can knit quickly this way although the 2 strands get a little tangled.

Here’s colorwork of a different kind. As I work on the Lara sweater, I am mixing yarns. The body of the sweater is 100% alpacat from Tintagel Hill Farm. The front ribbing is a wool blend from Persimmon Tree Farm. when I bought the yarns at the Hemlock Fest, the woman in the booth (I bought them together) commented how well the two yarns looked together. Add to that the fact that I wasn’t sure I had enough yarn to complete Lara and voila! A 2 yarn sweater. The ribbing is dense and I am hoping that its weight won’t affect the drape of the alpaca too much.